There are a couple of gotchas to look out for. Monotone does not allow absolute filepaths when you're listing files or directories to add to the repository. In this example, I made sure the Monotone binary was in my path, then ran the "add" and "commit" commands from the next directory above the "configs" directory. If Monotone is not in your path, you are doomed to specifying the entire path every time you run it, like ~/downloads/monotone-0.14/monotone.

Like any other RCS, your default editor will open to make the changelog entry.

Visualizing Confusion

Figure 1. With Monoton's xvcg dump, you can track the evolution of your Monotone tree. (Click for a larger image)

Using these 40-bit hashes instead of nice, human-readable names can get confusing. Fear not, for Monotone comes with a built-in xvcg dump, so you can easily create a graph showing the relationships of the branches and trees in your repository with xvcg. First, generate the xvcg data: